Dean Ornish

Dean Ornish, MD "is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, where he holds the Safeway Chair. He is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Ornish received his medical training in internal medicine from the Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He received a B.A. in Humanities summa cum laude from the University of Texas in Austin, where he gave the baccalaureate address.

"For over 32 years, Dr. Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating, for the first time, that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even severe coronary heart disease, without drugs or surgery. Recently, Medicare agreed to provide coverage for this program, the first time that Medicare has covered a program of comprehensive lifestyle changes. He directed the first randomized controlled trial demonstrating that comprehensive lifestyle changes may stop or reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer. His current research showed that comprehensive lifestyle changes affect gene expression, “turning on” disease-preventing genes and “turning off” genes that promote cancer and heart disease, as well as lengthening telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that control how long we live, in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009.

"He is the author of six best-selling books, including New York Times’ bestsellers Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease; Eat More, Weigh Less; Love & Survival; and his most recent book, The Spectrum.

"The research that he and his colleagues conducted has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Circulation, The New England Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Cardiology, and elsewhere.

"A one-hour documentary of their work was broadcast on NOVA, the PBS science series, and was featured on Bill Moyers' PBS series, Healing & The Mind. Their work has been featured in all major media, including cover stories in Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report. He has written a monthly column for Newsweek and Reader’s Digest magazines and is Medical Editor of The Huffington Post, which has 22 million unique readers per month.

"Dr. Ornish is a member of the boards of directors of the San Francisco Food Bank, the U.S. United Nations High Commission on Refugees, the J. Craig Venter Institute, and the advisory board of the Quincy Jones Foundation at the Harvard School of Public Health. He was appointed to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy and elected to the California Academy of Medicine. He consults with food companies to make more healthful foods and to provide health education to their customers in this country and worldwide. He chairs the Google Health Advisory Council.

"He has received several awards, including the 1994 Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from the University of Texas, Austin, the University of California, Berkeley, “National Public Health Hero” award, the Jan J. Kellermann Memorial Award for distinguished contribution in the field of cardiovascular disease prevention from the International Academy of Cardiology, a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association, the Beckmann Medal from the German Society for Prevention and Rehabilitation of Cardiovascular Diseases, the “Pioneer in Integrative Medicine” award from California Pacific Medical Center, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement, a U.S. Army Surgeon General Medal, and the Bravewell Collaborative Pioneer of Integrative Medicine award. Dr. Ornish has been a physician consultant to President Clinton since 1993 and to several bipartisan members of the U.S. Congress, and he consulted with the chefs at The White House, Camp David, and Air Force One to cook more healthfully (1993-2000). He is listed in Who’s Who in Healthcare and Medicine, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World. He recently gave a keynote speech reviewing the science of integrative medicine at the Institute of Medicine’s Summit on Integrative Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences.

"Dr. Ornish was recognized as “one of the most interesting people of 1996” by People magazine, selected as one of the “TIME 100” in integrative medicine, chosen by LIFE magazine as “one of the fifty most influential members of his generation” and by Forbes magazine as “one of the seven most powerful teachers in the world.”"


 * Advisory Council (2007), Acumen Fund
 * Advisory Board, Renaissance Weekend